Top 10 Rappers of All Time:
 

1a. Weezy F. Baby 1b. Jay-Z

2. Eminem

3. GZA

4. Nas

5. Andre 3000, Lupe Fiasco

6. Fabolous

7. Kendrick Lamar

8. Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent

9. Tupac

10. Biggie

I stopped reading right there.

http://www.musicbanter.com/rap-hip-h...p-artists.html

That looks more like a list of your 13 favorite rappers than a good attempt at an objective list of the greatest rappers. Such a list can not exist without some artists from the 70s and 80s rather you like them or not.

Lists like this can only be a subjective list of your personal favourites. There is no objective "best".

I didn't say it wasn't gonna be subjective. I don't like Doom, I'd still include him on a list of top underground artists way above many others I actually love. There can be objectivity in subjectivity. Anyone who discredits someone simply because they do not like them is just being stubborn.

i really dislike the fact that people think phrases like this make sense

anyway, my top 10

ghost
prod
dmx
andre
biggie
black thought
jay-z
nas
pac
em

edit - i know this **** is all opinion based and whatnot but i would just like to add my opinion that i really resent the OP for making jay-z share a slot with wayne and even worse, andre share a slot with lupe.... JUST MY OPINION THO

Read my response to Goofle and if you don't agree then explain to me what I'm doing with the MF Doom example.

you're saying you would put doom on a list even though you don't like him. i'm not sure how that makes it objective. maybe we have different ideas of what objective means. to me objective has a metric to it that can't be disputed.

so i guess that would lead us to the question of why you would put doom on a list as one of the best if you don't like him. because other people do? or are you one of the types who thinks you can count the number of rhymes in a verse or some other goofy **** like that to objectively measure how good a rapper is?

Maybe it's just how I'm interpreting the wording. The reason I'd put Doom on a list is because I recognize the influence he has had on the industry and why he is a favorite, even though I can't get into his music.

I think when talking in terms of "greatest of all time" you can set objective parameters for judgement and than use those parameters to subjectively decide who you think best represents them.

I didn't tell the OP he was wrong. The latter part of my first response was me just being a rap snob but I stand behind the rest of what I said in the thread.

Edit: Objectivity to me is about removing personal bias, there are cases where it can/can't be disputed depending on subject matter.

yea that's a common opinion among rap fans so don't take my hostile tone personally but i really don't agree with it.

for starters, there is nothing about the word "greatest" that suggests any specific criteria that need to be considered. like industry influence and all that... that is an assumption being made right out of the gate which is unfounded.

"industry influence" in and of itself isn't even an objective criteria. it is a quality that you might make some reasonable arguments in favor of a rapper using other, more specific objective criteria. like album sales for instance would be a truly objective criteria. or the number of times you are sampled in another artist's song. or you could take a survey of rappers asking them who their biggest influence was, though that introduces some potential for error as most surveys do. but yea.. and that's just one of the possible criteria that people look to when judging who the 'g.o.a.t.' is. for some reason hip hop seems to produce a really strong groupthink mentality which makes people confuse consensus for objectivity.

and then, even with all that, all this relies on an initial subjective assumption that 'industry influence' is relevant to who the 'greatest' rapper is, along with the additional proposition 'industry influence' can be linked to the objective criteria mentioned above (album sales, samples, surveys, etc.). which some might not agree with... so we don't have a clear cut set of parameters to really work with. which is why i tend to take the view that at the end of the day all you can really do with lists like these is pick the 10 rappers you think are best for whatever reasons you hold as important. nothing wrong with arguing with people but i hate the argument from authority type approach.

sorry to preach at you. seen this **** so much on rapmusic.com that it gets to me a bit i guess.